A Nice Trip to the Forest
by Kate McCaye
Summary: Little comedy, little angsting, little shippiness... mix well and let simmer for fifteen minutes on medium heat. Stir occasionally. Finished.
1. Default Chapter

A Nice Trip to the Forest

Kate McCaye

Disclaimer: Usual spiel. Don't own em.

Rating: PG for very very mild language.

Chapter 1

"I'm giving him another ten minutes and that's it," Jack O'Neill said firmly as he plodded uncomfortably through marshy, Florida-like swampland on P6X293.

His 2IC glanced at her watch and said, "We're not due back for another four hours, sir."

"Right little ray of sunshine, aren't you, Carter?" Jack said sarcastically, slapping at his own neck as he felt another alien mosquito drill into his flesh.

She chose not to respond to that comment.

Jack clicked his radio on and said, "Teal'c, report."

"We are well, O'Neill," Teal'c's voice replied calmly over the radio. "Dr. Jackson is hopeful that he will find something important in the immediate future."

"Yeah, yeah," Jack muttered, looking at Carter thoughtfully. Four hours in this unbelievably hot humidity. The only interesting thing about the entire day was the fact that the sauna-like planet had made her hair, at least the bit sticking out from underneath her hat, go all curly. He found this amusing, for some reason, especially because she seemed so irritated by it.

"All right, tell Danny boy he's got two hours, not a minute longer," Jack barked to Teal'c, clicking his radio back off without waiting for a reply. At Carter's questioning look, he shrugged. "Compromise. This way I get home in time for 'The Simpsons.'"

"You know, sir, I'd be happy to program your Tivo for you if you..." she started to offer for the fifth time since he'd bought it.

"I can program my own Tivo, Major, thank you very much..."

"Like you hooked up your Playstation all by yourself?" she asked in a suddenly playful tone.

The heat must be getting to her, he thought. At the grumpy look on his face, she hastily added, "Sir," with the cheeky grin that let her get away with a lot more than she should. Hmm, if Carter was suddenly in a good mood, even if it was only a fake one meant to cheer him up, he was going to take full advantage of it.

Ever since the Zatarc test incident a month ago, things had been so awkward between them most of the time; they had been avoiding any non-essential interaction with each other like the plague, both to ensure that General Hammond didn't further pursue their confessions and as self-preservation. Jack had missed the varying levels of camaraderie and teasing he had grown used to with Carter over the years, and wondered if she had as well.

He suddenly paused, leaving her to continue walking two paces before she stopped as well and turned to him with a questioning look on her face. She didn't bother to verbalize an inquiry, but her eyes widened in surprise at the sudden creeped-out look on her CO's face and the fact that he was pointing at her shoulder.

"On your back, one of those big things..." he said quickly in a terrified tone of voice.

The Colonel had confessed an intense hatred for bugs ages ago, so Carter only felt slightly girly as she yelped and hastily started swiping at her shoulder and back, turning around in place trying to get a look at the offensive creature.

After a few seconds, she realized there was nothing there and turned to look at her CO, who was grinning like a little kid waiting for the ice cream cone he knows is on its way. She narrowed her eyes at him and said, "Very funny. Sir."

"Thank you," he said with obvious satisfaction, hurrying off ahead of her again. She glared at his back and began plotting her revenge.

Fortunately, nature seemed to be on her side that day, and her imagination was not required to come up with a suitable revenge for her CO's juvenile behavior. Thirty yards away from the sight of the fake bug incident, he slipped on a particularly slimy area and landed flat on his bum in the disgusting marshy goo that covered a good portion of the planet.

His look of complete surprise and disgust as he sat in the sludge, combined with the fact that his sunglasses had fallen off his face and were now dangling by their cord lopsidedly, the cord having draped itself over one of his ears in the fall, gave Major Carter the best laugh she'd had in a good long while.

She was still clutching a nearby tree to keep herself upright as she laughed hysterically when O'Neill finally barked, "Major Carter! That's enough!" and tried to get up. Still suppressing giggles, she went over to him and offered him a hand up.

He had intended to accept the hand and get to his feet, he really and truly had. But then he had got an idea and in a split second decided he couldn't live with himself if he passed up the opportunity... so instead of accepting the hand up, he gave her a good hard jerk and she joined him in the goo.

After swearing like a sailor, she fixed him with a look that would have made a lesser man pee in his pants. Unfortunately for her, he found that the sight of her sprawled in the swampy sludge next to him, her hat now hanging down her back by its strings, her curly hair wet and dripping with murky water, her eyes bright with anger directed at him, and the blob of goo strategically dotting the end of her nose all combined to completely counteract the effect of the look she was giving him.

He burst into laughter loud enough to send every strange furry alien creature within fifty miles scattering in all directions. The laughter only made her look intensify, if that was at all possible. Still chuckling, he scrambled ungracefully to his feet and hauled her to hers despite the fact that she tried to jerk her arms out of his grasp.

Once on her feet, she wrenched her arms free and stalked out onto slightly firmer ground, brushing herself off as much as she could. He followed, trying to clean himself up a bit as well, although he really didn't see the point. Hurrying after her, he said with a big grin, "You look good wet."

This time he caught the full blast of the glare and fell silent, walking quickly beside her to keep up with her brisk pace.

Ten minutes later, she gave up wringing her hair out and plopped her floppy hat back onto her head, muttering, "That's it. As soon as we get back I'm getting a haircut. This is getting ridiculous."

"Don't," Jack said quickly before he could check himself. She looked at him curiously, whether due to the fact that she was surprised at his comment or the fact that she hadn't realized she had been speaking out loud, he wasn't sure.

"Sir?" she prompted. Oh well, he figured. Might as well go for honesty; she was still pissed off about the mud incident.

"Don't cut your hair," he repeated. "It looks good like that."

She looked at him skeptically. He noticed that there were still several droplets of mud clinging to the tips and grinned. "Well, okay, maybe not right NOW, but in general it's... oh fer cryin out loud do whatever the hell you want."

Suddenly irritated with the fact that between the two of them the compliment he'd been trying to give her had gotten all messed up, he sped up his own pace, so that now she had to work to keep up with him. Serves her right for once, he thought grumpily, suddenly keenly aware of an unpleasant squishing between his toes. His socks were wet and full of mud, at the very least.

"Hang on a second, Carter," he finally requested, stopping to swap out his socks for some dry ones. She waited impatiently, determined that it was some sort of victory that she was not swapping out HER damp socks, and took off before he was done re-tying his boots.

He scrambled after her and squinted as he got closer to her. It was hard to tell among the camouflage and various stains from the fall earlier, but there was definitely something on her bum, something that did not belong there. Not that he routinely spent time looking at her ass, of course. But there was one of those big mosquito things on it now, and it would be a crying shame if she was stung in such a sensitive area...

Carter jumped about a foot in the air as what could only be her CO's hand slapped her on the ass. "Sir, what the HELL do you think you are doing?" she hissed, wheeling around to glare at him yet again, her eyes and cheeks bright with fury.

"There was a bug on you," he said defensively, holding up his hand, which was smeared with the remains of the bug, as evidence.

She looked like she was trying to restrain herself from shooting him with great difficulty. Finally, after counting to ten slowly in her head, she turned around and kept walking. Jack wiped his hand off on his pants and tried not to laugh as he imagined himself giving Hammond a report of this mission.


	2. The plot thickens

Ch 2

Had Major Carter been less absorbed in thinking up new and horrible ways to exact revenge on her CO for his behavior all day, doing both immediate and long-term planning on the subject, she might not have walked blindly into the slightly sunken in area.

And had Colonel O'Neill, following at a short and safer distance behind his 2IC, not still been busy studying her ass, having become particularly fixated on it after the events that had just transpired, he might not have followed her blindly into the slightly sunken in area.

As each had, in fact, been doing exactly those things, they both fell through the ground, emitting various cries of surprise as they free-fell for several seconds before hitting icy cold water with twin splashes.

"Carter?!" Jack sputtered as he came up for air, gasping at the iciness of the fast-moving underground water they had found themselves in.

"Here, sir," she said unhelpfully from somewhere to the left of him.

"You okay?"

There was only a little bit of light filtering down from the hole they had made as they fell through, and he could only dimly make out the fuzzy dark shape of her thrashing in the water near him.

"Yes, sir," she replied dutifully, although it was in that tone that O'Neill recognized could mean she was anywhere from perfectly fine to suffering from a wide variety of injuries.

He fumbled around in his vest pocket for several moments as he tread water and finally found his waterproof torch. Clicking it on, he pointed it in Carter's direction first, relieved to see she was keeping afloat and didn't appear to be in too much danger.

"Sir, behind you," she panted.

He turned the light around and saw what she meant: on the other side of him was a rocky shore. It would be hard to reach with the speed the current was taking them though. He turned back to tell her to get rid of her pack so she could swim better and she was gone.

"CARTER!" he yelled, his voice echoing uselessly around the weird cavern they were in. The light from his torch skimmed over churning water that was Carter-free.

Swiftly unclipping his own pack from his vest, he took a deep breath and dove, looking around for her in the dark water with his torch only lighting a small area in front of him. With her pack on, she was sinking slowly.

He grabbed her by the vest and hauled her up to the surface, sticking the torch in his mouth for safekeeping as he tried to discern whether or not she was breathing. With her pack on, he realized if she wasn't there wasn't much he could do about it unless he got them both on land, so he turned his attention towards steering them to the rocky shore as fast as possible.

He wasn't quite sure how he managed to keep them both from drowning, but somehow he did it. Hauling her up onto the rocks as fast as possible, he let the torch clatter to the ground and felt frantically for a pulse as he gasped for breath.

It was there, but faint. He held his hand over her nose and could tell she wasn't breathing. "Dammit, Carter, breathe!" he ordered angrily as he tilted her head back and opened her mouth. She didn't respond so he frantically began administering CPR, growing more and more hysterical as the minutes stretched on.

"Come on, you're supposed to be the one who follows orders, I'd expect this from Daniel or Teal'c but I expect better of you, Carter!" he barked as he did yet another round of chest compressions before pinching her nose and starting more mouth-to-mouth.

She suddenly coughed and spluttered and he pulled back and lifted her head up as she coughed up a bunch of water.

"That's more like it," he finally said, unable to keep the grin off of his face as she lay there gasping for breath. He knew they were still in big trouble, but he was so relieved that she was breathing on her own again that he couldn't help but feel like they were going to be okay.

She opened her eyes groggily and tried to focus on his face, which was much closer to hers than it normally was or should be, but her brain was much too fuzzy to perform such tasks as looking or thinking, or doing much of anything for that matter...

Jack recognized the look on her face: she was about to ask him what had happened, but she passed out before she had a chance. Oddly, he wasn't too worried by it. She was breathing normally now, which was comforting, and it would be much easier for him to check her for injuries if she wasn't awake for it. He unclipped her pack and slid her off of it and onto her back on the rocky ground, pulling off her jacket as well and placing it under her head carefully.

As quickly as possible, he scanned her body with the torch and one hand, feeling for broken bones and other injuries. Aside from a few bumps and scrapes, the only real damage was a knot at the back of her head and a swelling ankle. He couldn't tell how bad it was without removing her boot, but he wasn't sure he should: if it was sprained, the boot would help keep the swelling down. However, if it was broken, the boot needed to come off so the bone could be properly set as soon as possible.

While he debated this, she stirred and groaned, clearly coming to.

"Carter?" he said uncertainly. It came out much softer than he'd meant, he'd intended to use the gruff CO bark she was always hasty to answer.

Her eyes opened dazedly again and locked onto his this time. "What happened?"

"We went for a dip. Are you okay?" He looked so worried she got scared.

"I think so, I just... my head... doesn't feel so good."

"That's the understatement of the week," he replied grimly, stopping her efforts to sit up with a hand on each shoulder. "Take it easy a minute. You've been in and out for half an hour, not to mention swallowing a gallon of water."

"Are you hurt too?"

The idea hadn't really occurred to him, so he supposed he wasn't. "No, I'm fine. Your ankle is messed up though."

"Yes, I noticed," she said, wincing in pain.

"I haven't looked at it yet... do you think I should take off your boot or not? I'm pretty sure it's broken, not sprained, there's a hard bump here..." he barely touched the spot he meant, but she hissed in pain nonetheless, squinching her eyes shut in an effort to appear as tough as possible. "Sorry. But it's a hard area hotter than the rest, I think it's a break rather than a sprain. I'm not sure though..."

"If you think it's broken it's broken," she gasped, trying to sit up again as the urge to grab her leg overtook the rest of her senses.

He held her down firmly. "You're just going to make yourself throw up. I'm pretty sure you've got a concussion," he said gently.

She realized as a wave of nausea passed over her that he was right. Janet would be so proud. "Teal'c and Daniel?" she asked as he started untying her boot as carefully as he possibly could. Since the laces were wet, he wasn't getting anywhere.

"They'll find us soon enough. Kind of hard to miss a big hole in the ground, don't you think?" He frowned at the laces and reached into one of his many pockets, pulling out his knife. "I'm going to have to cut these to get your boot off," he warned.

"Fine," she gritted out, clenching her teeth.

He nodded resolutely and cut the laces as quickly as possible, knowing it was going to jerk her ankle and really hurt. She swore and grabbed his other arm, twisting the fabric of his soaked jacket in her fist.

"Sorry," he apologized sincerely as he set the knife down and started sliding the boot off as carefully as possible. He watched her face closely, trying to gauge how much pain she was in, but she was busy doing the tough-soldier bit he hated in her and yet was guilty of himself.

Remembering how she had nearly been in tears just seeing him in pain as she set his broken leg four years ago, he marveled at the fact that when she was the one with the busted leg, she seemed determined to act as though it was merely an irritation, like a paper cut or burning your tongue on your morning latte.

After confirming that her ankle was indeed broken, he quickly rummaged around in her pack until he found her well-stocked first aid kit. He took more time than necessary arranging everything he would need, steeling himself for what he was about to do.

"This is really going to hurt," he warned, glancing up at her face as he prepared to set the bone.

"I know, just do it," she ordered through clenched teeth, not bothering to add a 'sir,' to that order, not that he noticed or cared.

With a loud crack her bone was put back in a proper line, and as Jack splinted it, she fell unconscious again, no doubt from the pain. This didn't worry him too much: he was confident Daniel and Teal'c would find them soon, and in the meantime, if she was unconscious she at least wasn't registering the pain.

As he swept the torch around the area they occupied, he noticed a gash in his own thigh, where his pants were ripped and blood had soaked his BDUs. The wound was still oozing slightly, as a matter of fact. He marveled at the fact that he hadn't even noticed it before and set about washing it out with antiseptic.

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A/N: More to come, of course. I wrote this story in a notebook on a sleepless night in Glasgow... it's just a matter of trying to find the time to type it up and post it.


	3. Huh?

Same old, same old. I don't own these guys, this is the next chapter of the story you must have been reading to get to this page... hope you like it, there's more to come...

Ch 3

Half an hour later, Carter started coming to again. Jack was ready for it this time; as he used one of the auto-injectors full of morphine he said, "You're doing good, Carter. Teal'c and Daniel will be here any minute."

"Radio?" she asked groggily.

"They're not responding. It's possible they've gone back for help. Try not to..."

All of a sudden her eyes snapped open and she looked up at him in what could only be described as pure terror.

"Woa, take it easy, what..." he started, confused.

"Get the hell away from me," she hissed, struggling to scramble away from him. Worried about her head and ankle, he pinned her to the ground firmly.

"You've got a concussion, Carter, you're delirious," he said firmly, trying to look past the sudden terror and anger in her eyes, which all seemed to be directed straight at him. She struggled to sit up again but the movements made her dizzy and she lost consciousness yet again.

Jack released his hold on her and sat back, studying her. What the hell had that been about? She had seemed perfectly lucid only moments before... well, likely as not she had a major concussion. He supposed even Sam Carter was allowed to be a little hysterical under the circumstances.

As she felt herself coming to again, she could still sense the naquada in her CO. She had no idea what to do. Her head was killing her, her ankle was busted, they were twenty feet underground. He had obviously been infected with a Goa'uld. She had felt their presence in the water they had fallen into, and now she could feel it in him. So why hadn't he killed her yet? She started to squirm as she realized he was preparing to give her another dose of morphine, but couldn't muster the strength to do anything about it before everything started going all black again.

She lost track of how many times this happened. Finally, she managed to nick one of the injectors and palmed it.

The next time she came to, as he was leaning over her to dose her again, she used every bit of energy she had and jabbed it in his leg, through the wet fabric of his pants. He yelled in surprise and pain and she dimly registered that he was taking care not to fall over on top of her as he landed heavily beside her.

Breathing heavily for several seconds, she forced herself to sit up and was grateful to see that her pack was right next to her. Rifling through it, she bound his ankles together and then his hands, noticing as she did so that he had a large gash in his thigh. Probable the entry wound, she realized grimly, her face paling. She grabbed the torch and scooted several yards away from him, putting as much distance between them and the water as possible.

Only when she was certain he was secure did she start crying.

"Carter?" he asked groggily as the morphine wore off. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Don't try to get up," she warned. He found her in the dark shadows. She had the flashlight and the barrel of his sidearm trained on him.

"I won't," he assured her, wondering why the concussion was doing this to her. "But you're hurt. You're going to need help. I can't help you all tied up like this."

"I don't want you anywhere near me," she said firmly.

Jack could see that she had been crying. A lot. "So, what are you going to tell Daniel and Teal'c when they ask you why you've tied me up and are pointing a gun at me?"

"The truth. That you're a Goa'uld."

He actually laughed. It was so ridiculous. "Carter, I'm not a Goa'uld. You hit your head really hard, I'm sure..."

"I can sense the naquada in you, don't even try the old 'it's me, I swear,' routine," she interrupted.

"Carter, it IS me. I don't know why you sense naquada in me but I would KNOW if I had a snake in me. Come on. Why would I have set your leg if I was a Goa'uld? For that matter, why would I have dragged you out of the water in the first place?"

"Hoping I wouldn't figure it out and you could get back to the SGC." She had clearly already thought this through and somehow convinced herself it was true. He sighed, resigning himself to spending the rest of their time down here tied up.

Suddenly she swayed and fell over onto her side. She looked like she was going to throw up, but somehow she managed not to as she got back up into a sitting position, pointing the gun at him once more. "Carter... Sam... you need help. You've got a bad concussion, I need to be able to help you or the doc will kill both of us when we get home."

"If you think I'm letting them take you back to the SGC you're stupider than most of your lot."

Even though it was currently directed at him, he had to smile a little bit in admiration of her attitude. He sighed. He was worried about her health and needed to get her to let him go as fast as possible. That meant he was going to have to convince her of who he was the old-fashioned way.

"When you had Jolinar inside of you and we didn't know it was a Tok'ra, not a Goa'uld, do you remember when I came to visit you?" he asked quietly.

Tears sprang to her eyes but she glared at him stubbornly and refused to let them fall. "I'm not stupid. I know you have access to the host's memories. This isn't going to work."

"I felt the same way you do now... I was positive it was the real you when I left. It was the first time you ever called me Jack... actually come to think of it, was it the only time? I didn't want to leave you but I couldn't stand to see that thing using you to speak. Nobody believed me you were still in there. They were all ready to give up on you."

"You know the Tok'ra are not the same as you," she said evenly.

"That's true. But I'm not a Goa'uld either, Carter. I'm just me."

"You've got an entry wound on your thigh."

"That's just a cut. From hauling us up onto the rocks."

"Liar."

"Ask me something only I would know," he begged.

"I already told you, I know you have access to all of the Colonel's memories."

"Look at me," he said firmly.

She met his eyes defiantly, hating the familiar look she saw in them. The last time she had seen it he had been yelling at an alien archaeologist about losing his son.

"I'm me," he said firmly. "I know I am. And you know that if things were the other way around, I'd trust you."

He saw her resolve melt for a few moments, then she wrestled with herself, and finally said, "Sir, you may not be who you are."

She was about to cry again. He took a deep, calming breath and said, "If you weren't hurt, I would sit here quietly until Daniel and Teal'c came to sort this out so we didn't have to go through this. But I don't want to sit here with my hands and legs tied and watch something happen to you that I can't control. You have to believe me, Sam. I'm me."

She wavered again and said, "I believe you."

He sighed in relief.

"I believe I'm talking to Colonel O'Neill right now. But I also know that there's a Goa'uld inside of you. It could be lying in there quietly so that you don't even know it's there, and as soon as you convince me to let you go, it will take you over, in which case we're BOTH gone."

"Sam, you're wrong," he said gently. "I know it's a new experience for you, but you're wrong. There's nobody in here but me."

"I can SENSE the NAQUADA IN YOU!" she screamed suddenly in frustration. That was a big mistake. She winced at the sharp pain in her head and keeled over.

"CARTER?!" Jack barked, trying to get her to wake up again. He scooted over to her awkwardly and knocked the gun out of the way. He heard it clatter into the darkness and heard a small splash as it dropped into the water.

As the torch caught his wound, he had a fleeting thought: what if she was right? No, he decided firmly. He would KNOW if there was a snake in him, even if it was lying low.

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	4. Poor Sam

Ch 4

A small part of him recognized that the safe thing to do would be to wait quietly until Daniel and Teal'c found them (what the hell was taking so long anyway?). But he had effectively disarmed his 2IC, and he was worried that her injuries were doing more damage than she was letting on, since she thought he was a Goa'uld. The problem was, if he could manage to free himself, would that scare her so badly that she'd end up doing even more damage to herself?

He decided it was worth the risk, as he clearly was no help to her in his current situation. Glancing over at her, he wasn't sure whether to be relieved that she was still passed out against a jagged rocky outcrop or worried. He looked around and spotted his knife, which he had used to cut her shoelaces earlier, lying in a dark corner.

It took him a good quarter of an hour to scoot over to it. He finally got it in his hands and started working at it doggedly, ignoring the fact that he was cutting his own skin almost as often as the ties he was bound with. After an hour, he was so absorbed in his task that he didn't even notice Carter coming to.

When she saw him hacking away at his restraints in the dark, his hands bleeding from self-inflicted injuries, it did little to assure her that he was not a Goa'uld. In fact, it had the exact opposite effect. The glimmers of doubt he had managed to plant were instantly replaced by even firmer beliefs that he was a snakehead. She looked around for the gun and couldn't find it. Grabbing a sharp rock, she crept towards him shakily and slowly, trying not to put more weight than necessary on her bad ankle, although the splint was Janet-worthy, she had to admit.

Jack saw her coming at him with a rock or something and was instantly on his feet, although his feet and hands were still bound. He swerved out of her way as she swung at him, yelling, "Carter, cut it out!"

When she missed hitting him, she was thrown off balance. He twisted around behind her and reached over her with his bound hands, trapping her against him with her arms at her sides. Lucky for him, she was still very weak, or he knew he wouldn't stand a chance against her with his feet and hands bound.

As it was, she was still putting up a pretty good struggle, throwing her weight back against him in an effort to escape. In the second she was lifted off the ground, she swung her uninjured foot into his thigh and just happened to make contact with the open wound.

"CARTER!" he yelled in frustrated pain.

She slid out from under his arms and started backing away from him hastily. "Sam, stop!" he suddenly yelled as he realized what was about to happen, a second before she slipped right over the edge, banging her head on the rocky side for a second time, and slid back into the water.

He started panicking when she didn't immediately resurface. She had sensed naquada in there, what if there really were Goa'ulds in there with her? Aside from that, she wasn't exactly going to be up for swimming with that bang on her head and the splint on her leg...

He found the nearest sharp rock and wrenched his bound wrists against it so hard that the bindings finally broke. Screaming in pain again, he quickly scrambled for the knife, cut his leg bindings, and jumped back into the water. She was floating, unconscious.

He grabbed her yet again and dragged her once more out of the freezing water. This time, as soon as they were back on land, she started coughing and spluttering up water. He turned her on her side and pulled her hair back out of her face, squeezing the extra water out of it.

"Breathe in," he instructed. She gasped for breath for several minutes and since she was no longer struggling against him, he wondered if she had maybe finally realized he wasn't a Goa'uld.

As he took her back over to where their stuff was, however, she blinked up at him slowly and said, "It'll never work. You'll never get back to the SGC, so you might as well kill me now."

"Not going to happen, I'm afraid," he muttered grimly as he set her back down on the ground and pulled her blanket from her pack. She was already unconscious again by the time he had found it and covered her with it.

"Although I will be teasing you for at least a year about this whole 'I thought you were a Goa'uld' thing when we get out of here," he said firmly to her unconscious form.

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A/N: Sorry about all the Sam Abuse... when I'm not writing something funny I guess I tend to beat the crap out of the characters)


	5. A Swap

Ch 5

Jack steeled himself as he saw her stirring again. He watched her realize that he had tied up her hands, and tired her legs together up at the knee, away from her broken ankle. When she had stopped trying to squirm, he went over to her cautiously.

"Carter, I tied you up," he stated.

"Ya think?" she countered, sounding an awful lot like him.

"I didn't want you to hurt yourself. And I was tired of fishing you out of that water. It's not exactly a spa."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, sounding completely exhausted.

"Because I overestimated Teal'c and Daniel apparently. There's hardly any morphine left and I'm not sure how much longer we'll be down here."

"That's not what I meant. Why don't you just cut the crap, I'm not buying it."

"It's not crap, Carter. I'm not a Goa'uld. Why the hell would I be doing this if I was? Why wouldn't I have killed you at any point during all of this?"

"I have no idea, but I KNOW there's naquada in you and..."

"You hit your head. Twice now, actually. And you have a broken ankle. And you're still a pain in the ass. Would I be putting up with you if I was a Goa'uld?"

"You obviously have a reason. You probably want me to fix one of your ships for you or give you information about the SGC or about Colonel O'Neill so you can fool everyone else at work..."

"You're not thinking straight. Look, I want to save some of this morphine for when we have to move you, because that's probably really going to hurt. Let's just agree to disagree. I'll sit over here quietly, _not _attacking you in any way because I am _not _a Goa'uld, and you try to think about... something else. There's no sense you staying so worked up over there when you're not in any real danger."

She looked at him in utter disbelief. Frustrated, he moved as far away from her as he possibly could and still keep an eye on her and sat down, crossing his arms stubbornly and looking at her calmly. She glared at him for several minutes before sighing angrily.

"I just don't see why you're bothering to keep this charade up. You're obviously not going to convince me that you're not a Goa'uld."

"We've been over this, Carter, I'm not a Goa'uld. You're smarter than this..." He winced as he saw her try to get more comfortable, inadvertently causing herself more pain in the process as she jarred her ankle. "You're making this a lot harder on yourself than it has to be."

"Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to take over Colonel O'Neill," she grumbled, trying to tuck the blanket more firmly around herself.

"Carter, what the hell would a Goa'uld want with me? Bad knees, gray hair... I think it far more likely that if both of us were in that water and a Goa'uld was thinking about making one of us a host, they would pick you."

"Well..." she stopped and thought about that for a moment. It made sense. "Unless they sensed the naquada in me already and thought I might already be one, or be a Tok'ra or something..."

"They would know the difference," Jack insisted. "They would know you HAD been a host before and therefore would be likely to be a good one. They would definitely pick you, not me."

She couldn't think of a response to that for a while and Jack thought he had finally won, until she shook her head firmly, a look of denial set in place on her face. "I know what I know. There's naquada in you."

He sighed angrily. "Fine. There's naquada in me," he said sarcastically. "Can we please just agree not to talk for a while?"

"Why? Afraid I'll catch you lying?"

"You know, you've been around me way too long. You're getting really good at the whole 'antagonize your captor' bit."

"I learned from the best. And it sounds like you just admitted you're keeping me prisoner which means you admit you're a Goa'uld."

"I was being sarcastic, Carter, because you THINK I'm a Goa'uld and are reacting to me like I am." He watched her glare at him for all of five minutes and suddenly chuckled, which only seemed to make her madder. He held up his hands defensively.

"I was just imagining the GIANT apology you're going to owe me when we get back home and you're your usual brilliant self again. You're going to feel pretty silly about all of this." She glared some more.

Utterly frustrated, he looked away, deciding to focus his attention on a rock that, he determined after several minutes of scrutiny, sort of looked like an elephant if you turned your head sideways and squeezed your eyes almost completely shut.

The rock kept him occupied for quite a while, and when he looked back at Carter he was surprised to see that she was crying.

"Hey," he said in sudden concerned alarm, moving towards her before realizing that would probably upset her more. He stopped halfway towards her and stood awkwardly, watching her angrily wipe her cheeks with the back of her hand and avoid his gaze. "Is it your head? If you need some medicine now I can..."

"I'm fine," she snapped, still not looking at him. "Please, just... go away."

"Can't do that. I want to keep an eye on you, you've got a bad concussion."

"I said I was fine. Please. I know you don't care anyway, just... leave me alone."

"Why?" he asked. He knew she wasn't thinking straight and didn't realize she was speaking to him, but it was hard for him not to be hurt by the look of hate in her eyes and the biting tone of her voice as she snapped at him to leave her alone.

"Do you think I like seeing you in Colonel O'Neill's body? He hated you more than anybody I know. Being a host is his worst form of torture."

"That's not entirely true," he said quietly, looking at her sadly.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked bitterly, wiping her eyes again.

"I can think of worse forms of torture than being host to a Goa'uld. Like having you hate me because you think I am... and not being able to help you when you need help."

She melted for just a moment, then shook her head angrily. "Nice try. But Colonel O'Neill would never say something like that. Even _if _he did think it, which I seriously doubt. He would never say it."

She seemed so convinced that was true that it suddenly made him feel worse than anything else that had happened the entire time they were down there. He sighed and retreated back to his area, grateful when she fell asleep again, as it made him able to check her closely without her recoiling at his approach. And it left him plenty of time to brood.

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A/N: Almost done... just the final chapter and a short epilogue after this one. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and review. Don't worry, those of you who've expressed concern: I like happy endings too!


	6. They all live happily ever after

Ch 6

The next time Carter came to, there was a lot of shouting going on. Ropes were being lowered down towards them, and she could hear Daniel, Teal'c, and the Colonel all issuing orders. Except he wasn't the Colonel...

Struggling to sit up, she suddenly yelled, "He's a GOA'ULD! Daniel whatever you do don't let him out of here!"

She tried to back away as he hurried over to her, looking grim. He pushed up the damp sleeve of her shirt and injected her with something again. She glared at him until she was no longer able to keep herself awake.

The next time she woke up, she smelled the infirmary. She also realized that she felt properly dry for the first time in a while, and she was warm. Her head and leg still hurt, but the pain was dull and no longer almost unbearable. She opened her eyes cautiously and swept the room. Janet was smiling at her.

"Hey you. You gave everybody a pretty good scare."

"Where is everyone?" she asked, swallowing hard.

"They're debriefing General Hammond. They'll be back soon. Colonel O'Neill... Sam, calm down," Dr. Fraiser said firmly, holding her hands out, as Sam had immediately gone back into panic mode and was trying to get out of her hospital bed, despite the fresh cast on her leg and the various tubes and wires she was connected to.

"He told us what happened. He's not a Goa'uld, Sam. I did X-rays just to be sure, I knew you'd want to see them."

She pointed to the far right wall, where normal looking x-rays were indeed displayed. "But..." Sam started to argue.

"The bed of that river was made up of naquada. You two found an untapped resource, you're both going to be up for awards for it no doubt. There are traces of it in the water, and a lot of it got into the Colonel's cut, sort of injected into him from the rock that cut his leg. It's dissipating by the hour."

"Oh my god," Sam said suddenly, covering her face with her hands in embarrassment as she remembered how crazy she had been acting.

Janet sighed. "Nobody blames you, Sam, it was an honest mistake, especially with a bump on the head like you have," she tried to comfort her. "Honestly I'm amazed at how long you were conscious at all down there. From what Colonel O'Neill told me, you were pretty delirious, but it's good that you remained conscious as long as you did. Want me to fill you in?"

"Yeah," Sam said, swallowing hard as she remembered all the horrible things she had said to her CO, and how hurt he had looked by many of them... she sighed. This was not good.

"Daniel and Teal'c were met by some suspicious natives who decided to hold them prisoner first and ask questions later. They were waiting for you guys to rescue them while you guys were waiting for the same thing. Luckily, they eventually convinced the natives they weren't there to hurt or interfere in any way, and were allowed to look for you. Once they had their radios back, it wasn't hard to find you. Apparently you ah, resisted a little bit in the rescue attempt though. The Colonel had to knock you out with drugs and hoist you up out of the cavern you were in himself."

"Is he..."

"He's going to be fine. Seven stitches to the gash on his leg, a few minor scrapes..."

That wasn't what she was going to ask, Sam thought, resigning herself to grim embarrassment.

"How's the patient, Doc?" Jack asked with a grin, leading the way into the infirmary after the debrief, closely followed by Daniel and Teal'c.

He stopped in surprise as he saw that the curtain was pulled shut around Sam's bed.

"She says she doesn't want to see anybody ever again," Janet said with a sigh and a slightly amused look in her eyes, as though she were used to dealing with this lot of unreasonable children.

"Well, that's very Eliza Doolittle of her," Jack said, pulling back the curtain despite Janet's objection and Daniel's warnings.

Sam looked at him in surprise and her plan to ignore the lot of them flew out the window as she found herself unable to stop herself asking, "You've seen 'My Fair Lady?'"

"No!" Jack said defensively as he took a seat on the end of her bed.

Daniel and Janet burst into laughter as Daniel sat down heartily in the chair next to Sam's bed .

"I ah... was flipping through the channels one night and..." Jack started to explain.

"O'Neill, was that not the movie you and I watched last Saturday night?" Teal'c inquired politely, his tone a little _too _innocent to be genuine.

Jack looked around at everyone: Janet had her usual satisfied smirk, Daniel was sporting the goofy grin, Teal'c wore a rare smile. Even Carter was smiling sheepishly, clearly still embarrassed over the whole fiasco but glad that it wasn't the only source of amusement for everybody . Her eyes were still slightly glazed, indicating that she was still a bit loopy from medication and her injuries.

Suddenly he was so glad to be out of that damn hole, to be safe and dry and not under suspicion of being a Goa'uld that he started laughing too, and as Daniel and Teal'c burst into loud choruses of "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!" Sam grabbed her head in obviously faked pain, Janet started objecting that they were disturbing her other patients, and Jack could only shrug sheepishly and mutter, "Ohfercryinoutloud."

The End.

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A/N: Wow, I would consider this my worst story and I think it's probably gotten the most reviews. Thanks everybody, especially the sweeties who said they didn't want the story to end and the ones worried about a happy ending) There's a short epilogue to come, shouldn't take me long to type up once I can find the paper I scribbled it on!


	7. Epilogue

Quick Note: Sorry this took so long to post, everybody. Some idiot in the flat above mine killed everybody's Internet connections with a leaky shower. Go figure.

Epilogue

They were still laughing and joking when General Hammond entered. Dr. Fraiser and Jack immediately stood to attention, but Hammond waved them away and said, "Relax, people. Major Carter, you look like you're feeling pretty good, especially given the circumstances." He smiled warmly at her.

"Thank you sir. I think I should be back to normal tomorrow if you want me to get to work on the..."

There was a loud chorus of objections from Jack and Janet. Hammond listened to them for a few seconds and held up his hand. "Why don't you take it easy through the weekend, Major," he suggested kindly, but with that hint of firmness in his voice that told her it wasn't optional.

"Yes, sir," she answered dutifully.

"All right, people, I need to see all of SG-1, minus you of course, Major, in my office now."

They all started to follow him but Jack stopped in the doorway. "Umm, General, would it be okay if I joined you in a few minutes?" he asked quietly.

Hammond looked at him seriously and decided, "Five minutes, Jack."

"Thank you sir."

He waited for everyone else to leave. Janet looked back and forth between Sam and Jack. Sam was suddenly fascinated by her IV rack. "I'll go... see about your bloodwork, Sam," Janet muttered, hurrying off to give them some privacy.

"So, Carter..." Jack finally started, unsure exactly of what he wanted to say.

"I'm sorry, sir..." she started, fiddling with her sheet and still not looking at him.

"Forget it," he said dismissively. She looked up at him in surprise. "Let's just forget it, okay?" he repeated.

"Yes sir," she agreed, nodding gratefully. "But I'm still sorry. I should have known..."

"That's not forgetting it, Carter."

"Yes sir."

He smiled at her until she returned the smile and then he nodded. "Well, I better go join the meeting..." he headed for the door.

"Colonel?" she asked suddenly. He stopped and turned, waiting for her to speak. "Thank you."

He nodded, still smiling slightly. "Uh, we'll come back and see you after the meeting. You want anything? You could borrow my Gameboy."

She laughed. "No thank you." Suddenly she smiled and said, "Although you could loan me your copy of 'My Fair Lady...'"

He rolled his eyes as she laughed at the look on his face. "Cute, Carter. Very cute. I'm going to go kill Teal'c now."

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A/N: Hope everyone was satisfied and mildly entertained. I'm one of those shippers who thinks the show is plenty shippery by itself (excluding the whole Pete fiasco, which I studiously pretend does not exist,) so I tend to stick more in line with the type of stuff you would see on the show, maybe going a bit further by delving into Sam or Jack's thoughts a bit, but not having them actually say the mushy-gushy stuff. Although the next story I'm about to start posting is MUCH more shippy than anything I've done so far;)


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